It is dark, I note, as I casually open the door of my home and quietly slip out. The darkness does not deter me, for I have never been particularly been afraid of the darkness, not even when I was a very small child.

Nevertheless, as a car screams a couple of blocks away, there is something different about tonight that makes me shiver. What it is, exactly, I do not know, and I do not particularly wish to find out. I should not be afraid; the city feels exactly the same as it did the night before, and the night before that. But still, something unsettles me.

My name is Anastasia, and I am twenty-two years old. I am not a local here in Forks; I came from Australia, five years ago, when I was barely out of school and was almost discovered and sent to jail for my crimes.

Yes, I admit it, I am something of a criminal in Australia, which is why I moved to Forks, to start my life over; I have forged documents that identify me as Natalie Price, a harmless woman who works at the local supermarket and pays her bills every month, so I go mostly unnoticed here in Forks. Yet my reputation precedes me, even in America, so I often get a number of people asking me to get them certain items that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else but the bedside of the Prime Minister, for example.

Yes, I am a thief. I steal valuable objects from high-ranking people and sell them through the black market, which is why I can pay my bills every month and still afford to survive. I don't really have a job, at least a proper, legal, job.

What started as a disorder is now my life. I steal for a living.

But I do not regret it. I am richer than most people in the country, and I can have almost anything I want.

But still, I have to be careful. There are many people in this world who wish me dead and would gladly put a few bullets in my brain to silence both me and my obsession, my job, my life. I have stolen from many, many people; from little old ladies who had millions of dollars hidden in their wardrobe, to the leader of the SWAT team, who had information on my whereabouts.

I am extremely proud of that last one; I managed to swipe the documents and burn them, in the safety of a nearby forest. All in one night too. If anyone found out what my real name was, and where I was living, I would be in real danger.

So I live my life on the fringe to avoid being noticed. I live alone; I have not had any time for romance at all in this chaotic life. But I do not mind. If I am alone, there is only myself to look out for; if I had a tagalong, I would be forever making sure they didn't leave any obvious tracks, or else just making sure none of my enemies shot them down in a moment of anger and hate.

I carry a gun in my left coat pocket, and a switchblade in the other. I am prepared; no-one is going to get Natalie Price tonight.

I have a job to do.

I grip my switchblade tightly, as I stealthily shut the door and creep down the street, making no noise. Yet I am still not comforted; something is still not quite right tonight. It feels like I am being watched. Bearing this in mind, I start to run down the sidewalk, my sneakers making no noise, as they lightly slap against the pavement. If someone is indeed watching me and preparing to attack, I would rather fight somewhere isolated, where no-one will hear my attackers' screams of pain, as I fill their body with bullets.

I reach an intersection; I flinch, expecting spotlights to light me up like a torch, but there are none. I am lucky. I cut across the intersection and decide, on the spot, to go to the dump. The smell of rotting garbage will hide the scent of a rotting body, and by morning, it will be crushed into neat little cubes, just like the rest of the garbage. How do I know this? I have killed there before, and still no-one has found the man's body yet.

I suppose I am not just a thief; I am a murderer too, it seems. But I do not kill aimlessly. I only kill those who are close to exposing who I really am. I do not trust them to simply remain silent, as they have told me they would do, as soon as I were to leave them alone, they would go to the police, and I would be ruined. I could never let that happen.

My brown hair flows out behind me, as I run in the direction of the dump site. I curse inwardly; my hair was supposed to remain under my cap, so that if I were to be seen, I wouldn't be recognized as Natalie Price. My blue eyes are hidden behind a thick pair of sunglasses that cover almost half of my face. I look like a fly but I do not care. I wear all black. Even my sneakers are black, black converse sneakers I stole from the mall.

There is a sudden sound from behind me.

I spin around, yanking my switchblade out of my pocket as I do so. "Who's there?" I shout into the darkness. There is no answer. "Who's there?" I shout again, but not as loudly, for I believe there is no-one there.

Perhaps I am paranoid as well as a kleptomaniac.

No-one appears. I shrug and turn back around, still gripping my weapon tightly; it may be a trap. Still, nothing. Slightly annoyed, I continued on, still heading for the dump, just in case.

No-one follows me to the dump, I am quite sure of that. But still, I am nervous, and when I knock over a trashcan, I jump and let out a loud shriek. I curse quietly afterwards; I am supposed to be stealthy. Sighing, I slip my blade back inside my pocket; the night is already wasted.

XxX

"I am sorry, but I was...unable to get it last night," I say tightly into the phone. I am back in my tiny, boring Forks house. The man on the other end shouts and swears quite a bit at me for awhile. Soon enough, though, I get quite tired of it and blurt it out: "Someone was following me last night."

The man is quiet. He thinks I have been caught, I am sure of it. "I wasn't caught," I say softly, reassuringly. There is silence on the other end. Perhaps he thinks it is a joke. "I am not joking," I tell him a minute later, to see if that is what he is thinking.

"You'd better not be," he finally says, a dangerous note in his voice. I sneer, even though he cannot see it.

"Or what?" I ask. "You'll turn me in to the police?"

The thing is, I know he cannot do that. He is also in the black market, selling weapons, such as very illegal throwing stars, swords, axes, even a few spears.

There is nothing he can do that I am afraid of.

Because, if he tries to turn me in, I can sell him out and not get in an ounce of trouble.

You see, I nearly always get my way. Very rarely can people refuse me, with my seductive voice and good looks. I once bought off a car salesman who'd seen me depositing a body in the back seat of one of his convertibles. I paid him exactly one million dollars to keep quiet and to park the car at the bottom of the lake. I said that if he survived driving the car into the lake, I would pay him another million dollars.

And so I did.

But he was planning to go to the police, I knew, so, when he was on his way to the police station, I delayed his journey. That man never made it to the police, and the police never found out about his death.

The man is silent. He knows I have him.

"Damn," he swears angrily. I smile.

"I am not stupid, Mr. Parkes. I know how to set things up. There was interference last night. I will get you the papers tonight. You will meet me in the local park. Then you will pay me."

"Which park, Natalie?"

I consider for a minute. "I think you know, Mr. Parkes. I will see you there at seven. " I hang up. Now I have a time limit to obtain those papers. I must get them, in full daylight, if I am to meet Mr. Parkes at seven tonight. I glance at my watch. It is already twelve.

I must hurry.

I slip a black hoodie over my jeans. I once again put the fly sunglasses on, and I pull my hood up. I rush out my front door, eager to get this whole thing over and done with- Parkes isn't the loveliest person out there. "Oh, hello, Natalie," Mr. Weber says cheerily. He is hosing his car, obviously washing it.

"Hello," I say somewhat vaguely, giving a shy little wave. Mr. Weber goes back to hosing his car down. He is used to my bizarre outfits and my quietness. I make my way down the street, intending to steal a portion of the money that Chief Swan has saved up. The man doesn't trust bankers, so he (smartly) hides it under his mattress. It is not much, mainly saved up for his daughter, Isabella, for college. Not that he has to worry about that.

Apparently, the girl has had a child and will not be attending college anytime soon. I do not like taking Chief Swans' money. He has been very kind to me, but still, I must take it. Until Parkes pays me again, I am pretty much broke, and I NEED money to hail a taxi to get to the papers that Parkes needs.

So I wait until the chief of police is safely out of his house, until I start searching for the keys. He leaves Isabella's unneeded house keys under the welcome mat. I unlock the front door quickly and dart inside.

The Chiefs' room is upstairs.

I hurry up the stairs and find his room. I dig around under his mattress for about fifteen minutes before I strike gold. There it is, twenty thousand dollars, stuck under Charlie Swans' mattress. I almost laugh at how easy it is to steal in Forks. It is a small town, and most people in small towns are relatively stupid. It's enough for me to go to Seattle and back. And thankfully, it's not so much that Chief Swan will notice. When you have twenty grand in hundred dollar notes, one hardly misses two.

I doubt he will notice; even if he does, who is he going to convict? Harmless Natalie Price who works at the supermarket?

I do not think so.

I slip the two hundreds in my pocket with the switchblade and carefully lower Charlie's mattress back down; I had heaved it against the window when I was searching for his money. I dart back downstairs, my hand shoved in my pocket, clutching both my switchblade and the money.

I pause in the living room, and stare at some of the photos that line the walls. One is of a young girl, with chalky pale skin, bright brown eyes, and long brown hair. She was holding a small child, roughly the size of a loaf of bread. The child had curly brown hair. I could not see any more of it, because it was wrapped in a blanket. A man stood next to the girl and the child. He was lanky, had identical pallid skin to the girl, and had untidy, bronze-coloured hair. The three of them were standing close to each other; they were obviously a family. I saw pictures like this all the time, but this picture was slightly different than the others.

Why? Because all three of them were extraordinarily beautiful.

It was somewhat eerie, really. I knew I was not ugly, but, just by looking at this photograph, I certainly felt it. Was it possible for these people to be that beautiful? It looked...somewhat inhuman, like they weren't real. Like they were painted by an old master with a careful hand. They had the faces of angels.

Almost as if they were from heaven itself.

I looked at that photo, and then I glanced at another. There was that beautiful girl again, this time with a boy I recognised as Jacob Black. "I know who you are," I tell the photo grimly. "You're Isabella Swan." I put the photo back. I do not wish to look at the beautiful girl any longer.

Then I remember. "You're not Isabella Swan. You're Isabella Cullen."

Yes, that was right. Isabella married that Edward Cullen, yet another stunningly beautiful person. And they had had a child. I hadn't seen her face, nor did I know her name, but I knew she must be as beautiful as her parents.

I close Chief Swan's front door, lock it, and slip the keys back under the house mat. Even though I stopped to look at the photos, I only took about half an hour. That is pretty good for me. Whistling cheerily, I wander down the sidewalk, intending to go down to the Lodge, a diner. The reason I wanted to go was because I needed to exchange one of my hundreds for change, and then I could call for a taxi and get out of Forks, at least for the present.

"Hello," I call out merrily to the owner of the Lodge.

"Why, hello there, Natalie," the owner says, smiling at me. I do not know her that well, only that she was once married to a man called Waylon, who got attacked by some kind of animal a few years ago. She had a kind face and a personality to match. I quite liked her and was one of the few people I had never stolen from-the Cullen family also belonged here. "What can I get you?" the owner asks now, taking out a notepad and pencil. I smile at her.

"I feel special, getting served by the owner of the Lodge."

The owner smiles. I have said the right thing. "Well, now, you are a lovely girl, Natalie. I quite enjoy talking to you."

I do not point out the fact that I am twenty-two years old, which makes me a woman, not a girl. It is a common mistake. I look, after all, only about eighteen, nineteen at most. "And I enjoy talking to you," I tell her now. "But I am afraid I will not be eating today."

"Oh?" a puzzled smile appears on the other woman's face.

"My father gave me a hundred dollar note," I say, pulling one out of my pocket. "And I need to call a taxi so I can go shopping in Seattle. But I do not wish to hand the driver a hundred dollar note. He may not give it back. It has happened before. So I was wondering if you could possibly give me some change?"

Like I said before, I nearly always get what I want.

The woman smiles. "Of course, dear," she says. "Will that be in fives, tens, or fifties?"

Hmm. Better get tens. "Tens, please," I tell her. She smiles and counts out ten dollar notes. She hands ten back to me and I pocket them gratefully. I thank her and leave the diner. I hail a taxi and tell him to take me to Seattle. "Not until you pay me, Miss," he grunts at me. I instantly have my switchblade out and positioned at his neck. The man is scared and he starts whimpering. "I will pay you," I tell him, "when I arrive in Seattle." The man agrees, naturally.

When I arrive in Seattle, I do indeed pay the taxi driver; I also give him a tip with the promise that he keeps quiet about the switchblade. I do not have time to waste killing this man. The man leaves me in a somewhat happier mood and a somewhat heavier wallet, a hundred and ninety dollars heavier, in fact.

These papers that Parkes wanted me to steal for him?

I know exactly where they are, and this time, there will be no interference. I WILL get the papers, and I WILL get my reward.

Any man who dares to try and stand in my way will be a dead man.

I have a switchblade and a handgun.